A Review of Short Circuit Performance in 650 V Power Devices: SiC MOSFETs, Silicon Super-junction MOSFETs, SiC Cascode JFETs, Silicon MOSFETs and Silicon IGBTs

Using measurements, a comprehensive analysis is performed on the short circuit (SC) performance and robustness of 650V power devices including SiC MOSFETs, SiC Cascode JFETs, silicon Super-Junction, silicon IGBTs and silicon MOSFETs. The peak SC current, the SC energy density (in mJ/mm²) and the SC withstand time (SCWT) have been measured for all devices using a DC link voltage of 400 V at 25°C, 75°C and 150°C. Results show that the SCWT increases with temperature in the silicon and super-junction MOSFETs, reduces with temperature in SiC MOSFETs and is temperature invariant in the SiC Cascode JFET. SiC devices have higher SC energy density than silicon devices, lower peak currents and are more temperature invariant. While the SiC MOSFETs fail in gate-source shorts with the source-drain still blocking voltage, the SiC Cascode JFET mostly fails in drain-source shorts with the gate still functional. All other devices (IGBT, super-junction MOSFET and silicon MOSFET) fail with both source-drain shorts and gate-source shorts. Only the SiC MOSFETs demonstrate increased gate leakage (indicated by reduced gate voltage) during the short circuit transient.